Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

Adam Nieri

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Her (2013): If You Created Her, Is It Real Love?

In this retrospective Mind Matters movie review, Adam Nieri ponders the questions raised by a thoughtful AI film

Unlike Catherine, Samantha is exactly what Theodore was looking for. No surprise there; Samantha is, literally, adjusted and updated according to Theodore’s preferences from when he initially began speaking to her. She exists only to be Theodore’s soulmate. Is that enough?

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Photo by Jeremy Bishop

AI Goes to Hollywood

Warner Bros. hopes Cinelytic's AI will save time while making more reasonable financial estimates, thus forestalling expensive box office blunders

Cinelytic’s AI does is what every AI does at its most basic level. It collects and sifts large amounts of data to find patterns that can be used to make predictions. AI excels at pattern recognition because that is its only purpose. Humans aren’t so linear or predictable.

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Lost in Space, A Mind Matters TV Series Review

I was skeptical at first, based on Netflix's track record, but was pleasantly surprised

If I could rewind time a week and add a piece of 2019 sci-fi to my list of the year’s Best and Worst Sci-Fi TV, I would add Netflix’s Lost in Space, Season 2—which came out just after I had published. Let's fix that now.

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Sci-Fi TV: 2019’s Best and Worst

2019 featured many sci-fi television and movies that were less sci-fi than political narrative

In 2019, I fell out with Netflix. I felt bombarded by more and more edgy content, as though Netflix wanted me to know how “adult” it is. Rather than producing a few amazing originals, Netflix started vomiting up a ton of terrible originals.

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The Expanse: A Mind Matters TV Series Review

The attention to detail and the realistic portrayal of space set it apart from run-of-the-mill sci-fi

I love the deep mystery surrounding the show’s central narrative device, the proto-molecule. It is somewhat sentient and is desperately trying to figure out what happened to the civilization that created it and was then wiped out while it lay dormant in our solar system for millions of years.

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the hypothetical planet nine in front of stars lit by the far away Sun

Nightflyers: A Mind Matters TV Series Review

Despite its flaws, Nightflyers does not deserve all the criticism it received.

It’s the saga of a ship of scientists making their way through the cosmos to unlock the secrets of a mysterious entity known as Volcryn. It turns out that Volcryn is not the only mystery; the Nightflyer holds many of its own secrets.

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The Feed: A Mind Matters TV Series Review

I started out thinking that the show was just the usual ho-hum tyrant-AI-takes-over flick and it is so good to be wrong!

Imagine a world where your mind is stored on social media. Now, what happens if someone steals, then abandons it. What will you do?

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How To Be Human: A Mind Matters Short Film Review

This new film turns a conventional sci-fi storytelling premise upside down

Most AI sci-fi chronicles the struggle of sentient artificially intelligent (AI) beings grappling with how to become human. That makes sense from the viewer’s perspective. If I firmly believed that our humble video game algorithms would evolve into thinking, feeling beings, then I would, of course, conclude that they would struggle as they grappled with their newfound humanity. But a recent DUST release, How To Be Human, takes that narrative—and turns it upside down. Rather than an AI struggling to become human in a human-dominated world, we watch a human struggling to be more like an artificial intelligence in an AI-dominated world. Kimi (one of the protagonists) undertakes a journey in which she sheds all those things that make her Read More ›

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Terminator: Dark Fate—A Mind Matters Movie Review

Aside from the fact that it felt like a retextured version of Terminator 2, I was constantly being reminded of the film’s obvious political agenda

Movies like Terminator: Dark Fate don’t seem to be made by people who care about the narrative. They seem to think that they need only make something that looks like a movie but acts as a medium for broadcasting their message to the masses.

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The Outer Worlds—A Mind Matters Game Review

You must discover the dark secret of the Halcyon space colony, despite the greed and corruption of a handful of powerful corporations

After the raging dumpster fire that Fallout 76 (2018) turned out to be, I hesitated to invest my time and money in another role-playing game (RPG) epic. But I am glad I did.

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Will Plausible Robots Replace Movie Stars?

A short film prepares us to think about it

Do I believe AI will be emotionally indistinguishable from human connection? No, personally I don’t. Nonetheless, I loved the short film. It was simple but very well-executed. If you’re looking for a short but thought-provoking film about AI to give your mind something to chew on over the weekend, I would highly recommend Sprites.

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Would a Simulated Universe Even Make Sense?

A well-crafted short sci-fi film suggests, intentionally or otherwise, maybe not

I’ve seen quite a few sci-fi short films over the years and Simulation is certainly one of the better ones. However, beyond that, I’m not sure this film knows what it is; it’s an identity crisis.

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Earth-like planet beyond our solar system. Isolated on black.

Ad Astra: The Great Silence Becomes Personal

The film images the fate of those who seek significance in the stars and may well wait indefinitely

In a world where the divine touch of extraterrestrial intelligence doesn’t elevate human existence to any level of significance, we are left with Ad Astra: a slow, methodical decay of human significance.

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A Mind Matters Review: Sci-Fi Shorts of the Week

With human input, Sunspring starts to make sense

This week, watch a collaboration between deep learning and human creativity produce something far more coherent than Sunspring. And check out an animation on the pitfalls of emotional intelligence.

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A Mind Matters Review: Love, Death, & Robots

Despite the trash and ruined expectations, several shorts were enjoyable and downright fun to watch

Love, Death, & Robots is rather ambiguous. Perhaps a more descriptive title would be Blood, Butts, and Some Sci-Fi Thrown In.

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A Mind Matters Review: AI Week at DUST, the sci-fi short films channel

Films you have time to see and think about

Looking for a good “robots, AI, ‘n sci-fi” fix to round out your weekend? Mind Matters has you covered for animations and shorts. For starters, check out DUST, a YouTube channel dedicated to short sci-fi. Its recent AI WEEK (February 11–18) offered “A collection of curated short films dedicated to artificial intelligence and its connection with humanity.” When I say “short,” I mean that the longest is about 30 min; the others are much shorter. So if you have just a few minutes to kill while downing a bowl of spicy curry ramen, I would recommend giving them a watch. For AI narratives, they’re not as clichéd as you might fear. Sunspring | DUST AI Week Runtime | 8:15 Cleanliness Read More ›

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A Mind Matters Review: Zoe (2018), an Android’s Love Story

Underlying assumptions aside, it's a great film with good acting and believable dialogue

Zoe is a great film but it presents a storyline often used to show how inexplicable and ineffable love is in order to get me to believe that it isn’t.

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Characters on the show Travelers with their guns drawn

A Mind Matters Review: Travelers Portrays AI As A Benevolent God

AI can even heal miraculously, but there is a price to be paid…

Season 3 seems like a good time to weigh in on the show’s overall audience appeal, level of materialist dogmatism, and vision of the future of AI.

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